Hey Hexe! Installment #8


Welcome to the eighth installment of "Hey Hexe", a bi-monthly, super-duper, deviantART how to. This time around our focus is: Hey Hexe! What on earth is an Official deviantART Beta Tester? How do I become one?

Music Please, Maestro!

What is an Official deviantART Beta Tester? How do I become one?

As a deviantART Subscriber or Senior member you have the option to join the Official deviantART Beta Tester Team. The Official deviantART Beta Tester (OBT for short) program is a group of people who have chosen to test and provide feedback on new features before they have been released to the general public.

Due to the size of the deviantART community, often times it is difficult to ensure that a new feature will work successfully for as many community members as possible. We try our best with the people who assist with administrative functions, but this is still a very small group in comparison to the size of the community.

Therefore OBT members try out pre-release versions of new features and provide feedback if they encounter any problems. This in turn assists us greatly in correcting any and all problems which might occur, before the update is launched to the general public.

If you would like to become an Official deviantART Beta Tester and you are a Subscriber or Senior member, you may join the Beta Tester Team by visiting
the 'Subscriber > Beta Testing' section of your Edit Settings & Profile page. From here you can enable beta testing.

Should you later decide to opt out you can do so by unchecking this box.

So what kind of things can I test?

Currently OBT members can opt to test the following;

New Profile Pages - You've seen them while surfing around member pages, now you too can test this sexy new look!

Previously OBT members had the ability to test, deviantART v6, Gallery v2, Collections, Film, Watermarking and more!

How do I provide feedback?

There are two special forums, to discuss and provide feedback on current projects in beta.

Beta Tester Feedback – This forum is the primary interaction point between you and the development team. When a new project is made available to you, the project lead will create a new thread. The development team members are the only deviants allowed to create threads to ensure that the feedback is precise and structured. You can however reply to these threads with any feedback you may have.

Beta Tester Discussion – This forum is specifically for you to discuss projects in beta with your fellow testers. It is a free for all. While developers may sometimes join in conversation threads in this area, most of their interaction will occur in the Feedback forum.


Note: We must stress that you should not submit feedback reports to the Help Desk or directly to developers. Feedback submissions of these types will be ignored. All feedback must be kept within the forum thread announcing the new feature, so that all developers may view it and work together to resolve whatever problems you encounter.

In Closing

I hope you have enjoyed the eighth installment of "Hey Hexe" and will keep your eyes peeled for future installments!